April 17, 2018 at 20:43What threatens business and users with a battle between ILV and Telegram? Expert Opinions
Your dear editorial team contacted experts and found out why business and ordinary users are faced with the game of ILV and Telegram in cat and mouse.
Here's who we talked to:
Evgeny Potapov:
Judging by what I see among 350+ clients and telegram chats (which is more than a thousand people), everyone switched to proxies and VPNs. Mostly switch to Socks. Of the friends and relatives who do not understand what Sox is, everyone has remained online. They were set up by friends. There is a feeling that the active core of Telegram lives and lives, and those who almost never used it will fall off.
The IP ban is most likely the ILV trying to put pressure on GCE and AWS, and for this, such large-scale blocks of subnets. Probably, the rocket launcher is achieving what it was seeking and did with Zello - to bring Amazon to the stage where they simply will not open accounts and give resources to Telegram. Perhaps they will use personal accounts to launch a crawl, and then it will be infinitely long.
Artem Kozlyuk:
The confrontation between Roskomnadzor and Telegram also affects third-party services: banks, retail chains. The lock is already similar to napalm. ILV does not hesitate to use excess funds and uncovered its gun. Apparently, the task was set clearly: “Do not allow!”. But, as we see, this has not yet led to real results.
The ILV will continue to continue to introduce new subnet masks - they will “wet” VPNs, proxies, and various anonymizers. They may even begin to carry out a “television attack” on Telegram in order to discredit them, so that “unstable” users themselves begin to turn away from this service. There are ordinary people among the Telegram audience: our relatives, parents - this is not just an IT circle. All of them are used to using Telegram in everyday life for communication. They will again be told that "there are enemies all around, and these your vi-pi-enes and tori are letting through extremism."
Artyom Gavrichenkov:
At the moment, the account of blocked addresses is already in the millions. Technically, this process can take a very long time. Both sides, at first glance, have ample resources to maintain their position.
In particular, Telegram, although it can no longer be accommodated in Amazon networks, has a number of other solutions: Digital Ocean, CloudFlare and smaller ones.
It is expensive. According to our estimates, Telegram loses a large amount at such work, up to orders of the level of $ 1 million per day. However, just recently, Telegram received investments exceeding these costs by many orders of magnitude. And in addition, the “Telegram” can consider the situation as a serious investment in their own reputation, showing that they can spend arbitrary budgets, so as not to obey the requirements of public authorities.
The Federal Communications Supervision Service also has resources, and they use them, blocking network after network. A business operating in Russia remains to maintain its monitoring tools up to date, since now any address can be blocked.
Philip Culin:
I find it difficult to predict loonies. But besides “freaking out” I can’t call it. Judging by the fact that addresses are being added to this moment, you might think that this is an act of intimidation towards Google and Amazon.
It is not clear who will surrender first. For Google and Amazon, this will also be a blow to reputation. I think they will try to come to an agreement. But here we are faced with "freaking out." I’m not sure that for them the Russian market is critical. Although tangible. But they can make some concessions. There is a possibility that Amazon and Google users will also come into play. And not on the side of the ILV.
Purely objective, Russia is a small country. Territories on the Internet mean nothing. I can’t say that this is an inconspicuous part of the market, but the loss is being experienced. It all depends on the degree to which the ILV is ready to agree and to what agreement.
Artyom Kozlyuk:
Now they [Roskomnadzor] agree with Google and Apple to exclude applications from their stores. It is not clear whether they will succeed or not, but, unfortunately, there was a sad precedent for LinkedIn. He was removed from both stores. And, perhaps, Roskomnadzor will be able to convince IT giants to meet them. But for now, the question is open.
Philip Culin:
This is a difficult question. Both Apple and Google try to comply with local laws, and remove applications from the store in the regions. But. They want to comply with local laws and look at them. Zello is not deleted, for example. And the bulk clip about Fish. They may find that even under local law there is no reason for such a request. In any case, the analyst of RAEC Karen Ghazaryan also thinks about the same, and I agree with him.
Evgeny Potapov:
They will definitely be deleted. They calmly follow judicial decisions, and I think that will be the case in this case too.
Artyom Gavrichenkov:
There are precedents, LinkedIn removed. But it’s hard to speak for each company individually. This will have little effect on the outcome of the fight. As I understand it, it was for this "Telegram" prepared. Pavel Durov announced: in case of temporary problems with the application, do not delete it. Throwing the application out of the Russian appstore or play market is one thing, but it has ALREADY been installed in a wide range of people. Moreover, this circle is growing on all these news. And by the time the solution appears, it can no longer be deleted.
Artem Kozlyuk:
Those whose business was affected by the blocking of so many addresses should go to court. I know representatives of services who are ready to enter into such a confrontation with ILV and prove that Roskomnadzor has no right to apply napalm funds to network addresses. Acting in this way, ILV can cause losses to the business and even the Russian economy. It will be difficult for foreign companies to develop business in a country where such chaos reigns.
If a business wants to continue to develop in our country, it is worth using judicial tools to protect itself. Even in our judicial system there were judges who made adequate decisions. The more such claims will be, the higher will be the efficiency of the processes. ”
Evgeny Potapov:
Now there are almost 20 million IPs in the database, but interestingly, we don’t see big problems. Companies that are focused on the Russian Federation do not live in AWS / GCE for a long time, almost all. But companies that are not focused on the Russian Federation do not care.
Artem Kozlyuk:
In general, petitions on change.org work well when it comes to some global issues, such as changing legislation or unblocking some well-known resource. It is rather a method of attracting media attention to a problem.
Change.org is effective for solving some local problems. For example, "They closed the kindergarten - we need it," or "We do not have enough doctors in the hospital - hire staff." There are hundreds of examples where petitions on change.org made it possible to solve a particular, municipal problem - that is a fact. But I cannot remember the successful precedents for solving global problems.
Nevertheless, the institution of the petition itself is important, although in Russia it is still not legally significant - the collected signatures do not affect anything. Even on the ROI portal, you can collect one hundred thousand signatures, which we did successfully at one time. You can hold meetings with the Open Government, where they will consider your petitions and thank you for drawing public attention to the problem. But they cannot recommend repealing laws that have just been passed. “Thank you, come again.” Therefore, until there is a law on the mechanisms and tools of "electronic democracy", the petitions will be in the "gray" zone.
Philip Culin:
ILV will not reverse the decision. There is of course the option (and it is probable) that now some businesses will represent their interests in the Presidential Administration, and from there Zharov will “fly”. But not yet.
Artem Kozlyuk: An
ordinary user who uses a VPN or proxy does not face anything. Russian law currently does not provide liability for the use of anonymizers and any other traffic tunneling systems. Even owners of VPN servers are not responsible. The maximum that our legislation allows us to do is block. And penalties for owners, and even more so for users, are not provided.
Nevertheless, we are taking great steps to ensure that such laws appear in our country. First, categories of prohibited information were introduced, then laws appeared that restrict tools to circumvent censorship. The next logical step by the state may be new laws that introduce penalties for users themselves for attempting to use such tools.
Artyom Gavrichenkov:
I asked a lawyer with such a question. At the moment, the legislation does not provide for exactly any sanctions for individuals or legal entities for using block bypass methods. There is a restriction only on the provision of such services.
Here's who we talked to:
- Artyom Kozlyuk ( Temych ) , head of the public organization RosKomSvoboda.
- Evgeny Potapov ( eapotapov ) , CEO of ITSumma - the company that is responsible for the smooth operation of Habr.
- Artyom Gavrichenkov ( ximaera ) , Technical Director, Qrator Labs. These guys have been protecting TechMedia, Tilda, Ivi.ru and a bunch of other companies from DDoS attacks for many years.
- Philip Kulin ( schors ) , a hoster from St. Petersburg. It maintains the same service for counting blocked addresses.
How will it end?
Evgeny Potapov:
Judging by what I see among 350+ clients and telegram chats (which is more than a thousand people), everyone switched to proxies and VPNs. Mostly switch to Socks. Of the friends and relatives who do not understand what Sox is, everyone has remained online. They were set up by friends. There is a feeling that the active core of Telegram lives and lives, and those who almost never used it will fall off.
The IP ban is most likely the ILV trying to put pressure on GCE and AWS, and for this, such large-scale blocks of subnets. Probably, the rocket launcher is achieving what it was seeking and did with Zello - to bring Amazon to the stage where they simply will not open accounts and give resources to Telegram. Perhaps they will use personal accounts to launch a crawl, and then it will be infinitely long.
Artem Kozlyuk:
The confrontation between Roskomnadzor and Telegram also affects third-party services: banks, retail chains. The lock is already similar to napalm. ILV does not hesitate to use excess funds and uncovered its gun. Apparently, the task was set clearly: “Do not allow!”. But, as we see, this has not yet led to real results.
The ILV will continue to continue to introduce new subnet masks - they will “wet” VPNs, proxies, and various anonymizers. They may even begin to carry out a “television attack” on Telegram in order to discredit them, so that “unstable” users themselves begin to turn away from this service. There are ordinary people among the Telegram audience: our relatives, parents - this is not just an IT circle. All of them are used to using Telegram in everyday life for communication. They will again be told that "there are enemies all around, and these your vi-pi-enes and tori are letting through extremism."
Artyom Gavrichenkov:
At the moment, the account of blocked addresses is already in the millions. Technically, this process can take a very long time. Both sides, at first glance, have ample resources to maintain their position.
In particular, Telegram, although it can no longer be accommodated in Amazon networks, has a number of other solutions: Digital Ocean, CloudFlare and smaller ones.
It is expensive. According to our estimates, Telegram loses a large amount at such work, up to orders of the level of $ 1 million per day. However, just recently, Telegram received investments exceeding these costs by many orders of magnitude. And in addition, the “Telegram” can consider the situation as a serious investment in their own reputation, showing that they can spend arbitrary budgets, so as not to obey the requirements of public authorities.
The Federal Communications Supervision Service also has resources, and they use them, blocking network after network. A business operating in Russia remains to maintain its monitoring tools up to date, since now any address can be blocked.
Philip Culin:
I find it difficult to predict loonies. But besides “freaking out” I can’t call it. Judging by the fact that addresses are being added to this moment, you might think that this is an act of intimidation towards Google and Amazon.
It is not clear who will surrender first. For Google and Amazon, this will also be a blow to reputation. I think they will try to come to an agreement. But here we are faced with "freaking out." I’m not sure that for them the Russian market is critical. Although tangible. But they can make some concessions. There is a possibility that Amazon and Google users will also come into play. And not on the side of the ILV.
Purely objective, Russia is a small country. Territories on the Internet mean nothing. I can’t say that this is an inconspicuous part of the market, but the loss is being experienced. It all depends on the degree to which the ILV is ready to agree and to what agreement.
Will the app be removed from the App Store and Google Play?
Artyom Kozlyuk:
Now they [Roskomnadzor] agree with Google and Apple to exclude applications from their stores. It is not clear whether they will succeed or not, but, unfortunately, there was a sad precedent for LinkedIn. He was removed from both stores. And, perhaps, Roskomnadzor will be able to convince IT giants to meet them. But for now, the question is open.
Philip Culin:
This is a difficult question. Both Apple and Google try to comply with local laws, and remove applications from the store in the regions. But. They want to comply with local laws and look at them. Zello is not deleted, for example. And the bulk clip about Fish. They may find that even under local law there is no reason for such a request. In any case, the analyst of RAEC Karen Ghazaryan also thinks about the same, and I agree with him.
Evgeny Potapov:
They will definitely be deleted. They calmly follow judicial decisions, and I think that will be the case in this case too.
Artyom Gavrichenkov:
There are precedents, LinkedIn removed. But it’s hard to speak for each company individually. This will have little effect on the outcome of the fight. As I understand it, it was for this "Telegram" prepared. Pavel Durov announced: in case of temporary problems with the application, do not delete it. Throwing the application out of the Russian appstore or play market is one thing, but it has ALREADY been installed in a wide range of people. Moreover, this circle is growing on all these news. And by the time the solution appears, it can no longer be deleted.
What to do business?
Artem Kozlyuk:
Those whose business was affected by the blocking of so many addresses should go to court. I know representatives of services who are ready to enter into such a confrontation with ILV and prove that Roskomnadzor has no right to apply napalm funds to network addresses. Acting in this way, ILV can cause losses to the business and even the Russian economy. It will be difficult for foreign companies to develop business in a country where such chaos reigns.
If a business wants to continue to develop in our country, it is worth using judicial tools to protect itself. Even in our judicial system there were judges who made adequate decisions. The more such claims will be, the higher will be the efficiency of the processes. ”
Evgeny Potapov:
Now there are almost 20 million IPs in the database, but interestingly, we don’t see big problems. Companies that are focused on the Russian Federation do not live in AWS / GCE for a long time, almost all. But companies that are not focused on the Russian Federation do not care.
Does it make sense to petition on Change.org ?
Artem Kozlyuk:
In general, petitions on change.org work well when it comes to some global issues, such as changing legislation or unblocking some well-known resource. It is rather a method of attracting media attention to a problem.
Change.org is effective for solving some local problems. For example, "They closed the kindergarten - we need it," or "We do not have enough doctors in the hospital - hire staff." There are hundreds of examples where petitions on change.org made it possible to solve a particular, municipal problem - that is a fact. But I cannot remember the successful precedents for solving global problems.
Nevertheless, the institution of the petition itself is important, although in Russia it is still not legally significant - the collected signatures do not affect anything. Even on the ROI portal, you can collect one hundred thousand signatures, which we did successfully at one time. You can hold meetings with the Open Government, where they will consider your petitions and thank you for drawing public attention to the problem. But they cannot recommend repealing laws that have just been passed. “Thank you, come again.” Therefore, until there is a law on the mechanisms and tools of "electronic democracy", the petitions will be in the "gray" zone.
Philip Culin:
ILV will not reverse the decision. There is of course the option (and it is probable) that now some businesses will represent their interests in the Presidential Administration, and from there Zharov will “fly”. But not yet.
Will there be consequences for the physical. persons for using proxies?
Artem Kozlyuk: An
ordinary user who uses a VPN or proxy does not face anything. Russian law currently does not provide liability for the use of anonymizers and any other traffic tunneling systems. Even owners of VPN servers are not responsible. The maximum that our legislation allows us to do is block. And penalties for owners, and even more so for users, are not provided.
Nevertheless, we are taking great steps to ensure that such laws appear in our country. First, categories of prohibited information were introduced, then laws appeared that restrict tools to circumvent censorship. The next logical step by the state may be new laws that introduce penalties for users themselves for attempting to use such tools.
Artyom Gavrichenkov:
I asked a lawyer with such a question. At the moment, the legislation does not provide for exactly any sanctions for individuals or legal entities for using block bypass methods. There is a restriction only on the provision of such services.